“And how are you getting on … in that house?”

“Very well, thank you, Aunt.”

“I expect she has wondered why I don’t call.”

“She has not mentioned that she missed your company.”

Aunt Clarissa flushed and said hastily: “I do not think you should go back to your finishing school. Your father asked me before he died so suddenly to launch you with my own daughters, and that I promised to do. It is for this reason that I asked you to come here this afternoon.”

“It makes me feel like a battleship,” I said. “Is it necessary to launch me?”

“My dear girl, you could not be received in the right places if you had not had a proper introduction to society. It is my duty, now that you have no father and your stepmother is …” She shivered, “… quite unsuitable … it is my duty to take you under my wing. I propose to look after you at the same time as my own two girls. It will be much cheaper.”

Three for the price of one,” I said.

“My dear, you have developed a habit of making extraordinary and unbecoming comments. I am planning parties and balls for your cousins, and you shall join us.”

“I have no great desire for a London season.”

“It is not a matter of your desire, Harriet, but what is a necessity for a girl of your class and position.”

“I always think the ‘season' is rather like a marriage market. The prize cattle are paraded and inspected.”

“Oh!” said Aunt Clarissa, and my cousins looked horrified. “I do not know,” went on my aunt, “where you learned such strange ideas. Not at your school, I hope. It must be that stepmother of yours.”

Her butler arrived and ushered in the parlormaid, who set up the tea things on the table near my aunt While the servants were present, conversation was of the weather.

“Shall you pour, Madam?”

“Yes,” she answered, and there was dismissal in her tone.

We ate cucumber sandwiches and toast, and Sylvia carried the cups to us. I told her that I was shortly leaving for Menfreya to be bridesmaid at Gwennan Menfrey’s wedding.

“Gwennan to be married!Why, she is only just out of the schoolroom.”

“She did not need a season,” I said, looking maliciously at my cousins. “And she is marrying Harry Leveret, who is, I believe, almost a millionaire.”

“There is no background,” declared my aunt triumphantly, but she grudgingly added: “although the fortune is considerable. And married … right out of the schoolroom.”

“Quite an achievement,” I murmured, smiling at my cousins, “with which we could not hope to compete.”

“How old is she?”

“She must be two years younger than you, Cousin Sylvia.”

Sylvia flushed. “I suppose they were friends from childhood,” she muttered.

They thought me malicious. My cousins would tell each other later that, as I knew I should have difficulty in finding a husband myself, I hoped they would not find it easy either. “When you return I shall take charge,” said my aunt. “Lady Masterton, who is bringing her girl out, has given me a list of very charming young men whom she is inviting to her parties, so we shall not be short of them.”

I felt heartily sick at the prospect, and I wondered if it would be possible for me to evade it. I did not want to be paraded like some heifer. “She limps a little but there’s a fortune there … a small one now, but if her stepmother dies, a big one. Anyone ready to take a chance?”

“You will have to develop a little charm, my dear Harriet,” my aunt was saying. “You cannot hope to achieve anything without charm.”

“I am not overanxious about my state, for all I should be expected to achieve is a husband, with which I may well be fitted to do without. Have you forgotten, Aunt, that my father has left me well provided for?”

There was a deep silence, and then my aunt said firmly: “I am afraid, Harriet, that you have developed some very mercenary ideas. And let me tell you—your habit of expressing them in that most unsuitable way is not going to…”

“Buy me a husband?” I added.

“Really, Harriet. I wonder why I give myself the thankless task of bringing you out with my girls. It is a duty I anticipate with considerable misgivings.”

When tea was over, Aunt Clarissa told my cousins to take me to their schoolroom and show me some of the dresses they would wear for their coming out.

Young Clarissa joined us. She was very like her sisters, pretty in a superficial way, and empty-beaded, which was what one would expect of girls whose upbringing had been supervised by Aunt Clarissa. They were trained to believe that the ultimate goal was the successful marriage. I wondered, as I listened to their chatter, how they would fare even if they achieved that goal. It would be impossible to make them understand now that what happened in the years after the ceremony was more important than what took place during the few months before.

I was a stranger among them, a cuckoo in the nest. They were afraid of my tongue but not of my face and figure. There they had the advantage, and they were determined to exploit it I was glad when it was time to leave, and riding home in the carriage I could express my irritation to Fanny.

“I wish I need never go there again. My aunt is proposing to do her utmost to find a husband for me! She is going to parade me at her wretched balls, which I shall hate in any case. It will be almost like having a placard round my neck, ‘Excellent bargain. Slightly damaged but considerable compensations. Please apply Mrs. Clarissa Carew, Aunt to the object, for details.’”

“Oh, Miss Harriet, you are a one. I don’t know how you think of such things. I don’t think you’re the sort to be married against your will, anyway. Not if I know you.”

“You’re right, Fanny. But how I hate this marketing!”

I was thankful that before this unwelcome season began I should be at Menfreya.

4

When Fanny and I arrived at Liskeard I was surprised to find A’Lee waiting for me. I had known that I was to be met, but I was expecting the Menfreya carriage.

“Miss Gwennan’s orders,” said A’Lee, greeting me as though I had never been away.

“But isn’t this the Leverets’ carriage?”

“She be almost a Leveret, Miss Harriet. She be giving her orders already.”

His lower jaw shook with suppressed laughter; I was certain that Gwennan was giving the neighborhood something to talk about.

On the way to Menfreya he told me that Gwennan herself had planned to meet me but had gone into Plymouth to see about some arrangements for the wedding.

“With most young ladies it’s their mammas that makes the arrangements. Not so with Miss Gwennan. Lady Menfrey learned to do as she was told long ago, I reckon.”

“And you’re looking forward to the day when she’s mistress of Chough Towers, I can see,” I said.

“There’ll be plenty and enough going on then, I reckon, Miss Harriet.”

“It’s good to be back,” I told him. “I feel as though I haven’t been away. Yet it’s quite a long time, A’Lee.”

“Aye, you’m right there. Quite a little maid you were when we last see ‘ee. Now you’m a young woman. It’ll be your turn next, I reckon.”

” ‘Well, nobody’s asked me, sir, she said,’ so far.”

His jaw wagged. “You were always a caution of a maid, you were, Miss Harriet. I reckon the one that has the sense to ask ‘ee will be doing well for himself.”

“Let’s hope that I have the sense to accept him when he does. It’s just struck me that this is a subject which occurs rather frequently in my life. Is it usual, or is it because I have reached that tiresome stage which is known as marriageable?”

“Oh, you be a regular caution, Miss Harriet”

‘Tell me, are there any changes here?”

“Doctor died some six months back.”

“Dr. Trelarken?”

“Yes. He took in a partner, Dr. Syms. He be there atone now.”

“And Miss Trelarken?”

“Oh, Miss Jessie, her went away … to London, I think. Her was staying with an aunt of hers up there, and there was talk of her being a governess or companion. There wasn’t no money, you know, and her’d have to earn her living like, poor young lady.”

“I should think she would be … capable.”

“Oh yes, very capable. Twouldn’t surprise me if her didn’t marry before long. She were a lovely-looking maiden.”

“Very beautiful.”

“Oh, yes. I always said to Mrs. A’Lee that it done you good to look at her. There was a time when we used to think…”

“Yes, what did you think?”

“Well, Mr. Bevil, he were sweet on her. Mind you, he’s been fond of a good many maidens in his time, I’d say; but with Jessie Trelarken it did look … Oh, well, seems it came to naught. He be a big politician now, as you do know. Got in with a big majority, I can tell ‘ee. People here is close, you do know. They like to stick to their own. Reckon they sees it as right and proper to be represented by a Menfrey again.”

“Oh yes, my father was a bit of an outsider, wasn’t he?”

“Well, ‘tis like this here. He didn’t never belong, did he? Now you, Miss, you have an air of belonging. I reckon it was because you come down here when you was a little 'un. And us don’t forget that you run away from London to come to we.”

“Oh … that was long ago.”

“Us don’t forget. It makes us think that you could belong with us more than most foreigners. You was a little 'un when you come here, and us do know that this is where you like best to be. Twas always so.”

“You’re right. I do feel happy here.” Then, Miss Harriet, it’s where you belong to be.”

“Look,” I cried, “I can see Menfreya Manor.”